One of the reasons that I like reading so much is that it exposes me to new words. Take, for example, the following word:
Tetragrammaton
I first came across the word when watching the science fiction film Equilibrium, where it referred to some sort of governmental organization. Yeh, whatever.
I came across it again yesterday while reading a steampunk novel, in which it apparently is returned to its proper meaning. The tetragrammaton is a Greek expression for the mystical 4-letter name of God ( יהוה ). Nobody knows exactly how to pronounce the word. Observant Jews make no attempt to speak the sacred name, instead replacing it with phrases (in hebrew) that mean “The Name”, “The Ineffable Name”, “My Lord” etc. Later scholars abandoned this fearful respect and attempted to pronounce it as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” (arriving at these by plugging in vowel sounds and translating the hebrew into other languages).
Interesting. Now, back to reading this fine novel (review to be posted in a few days).
//Note:
This post has inspired me to create a new section on this site, especially for words. I have quite a collection of words on my home computer and this will give me the opportunity to ponder them, and perhaps get some input on their origins.
